Friday, August 23, 2013

We have recently uploaded to academia.edu a manuscript, coauthored by us two and two others, with the title 'Can climate models explain the recent stagnation in global warming', in which we compare the magnitude trends in the global mean temperature recently observed - trends in the last 10 years and the trends in the last 15 years (1998-20012) - with the ensemble of trends simulated by climate models participating in the Climate Model Intercomparison Projects CMIP3 and CMIP5. Recent trends as low or lower as those observed in the HadCRUT4 data set, of merely 0.4 C/century, are reproduced by at most 2% of the scenario simulations. Also two other analyses of the development of global mean temperature have been considered, with a higher trend of 0.8 C/century by GISS and 0.4 C/century by NCDC - these other trends show up in the ensemble of scenario simulation at most in 4.7% of all cases and 0.6% of all cases. Obviously, there is some uncertainty in the trends, but our overall conclusion that the present trends are at the margin of the distribution generated by available A1B and RCP4.5 scenarios is robust against this uncertainty.

Wednesday, August 14, 2013

Imagine the following scenario. An atmospheric scientist makes a discovery that seems to challenge a particular model of sea level increase due to global warming. She expects her discovery will be refined through further research, and that, in the end, it will not refute the mainstream view. In the meantime, she wants to avoid giving ammunition to climate skeptics, so she postpones publication. But an ambitious postdoc surreptitiously informs the media about the discovery. The media accuse the scientist of a cover-up and report that key evidence for anthropogenic climate change has been refuted.

Friday, August 2, 2013

Warren Pearce, a young researcher and colleague at Nottingham University has published a smashing piece on the Guardian blog on Science and the Green Movement. It has attracted more than 700 comments in a few days - perhaps no big surprise given the main topic. It is inevitable that people on both sides of the fence feel strongly about the issue.

Sustainable use of KLIMAZWIEBEL

The participants of KLIMAZWIEBEL are made of a diverse group of people interested in the climate issue; among them people, who consider the man-made climate change explanation as true, and others, who consider this explanation false. We have scientists and lay people; natural scientists and social scientists. People with different cultural and professional backgrounds. This is a unique resource for a relevant and inspiring discussion. This resource needs sustainable management by everybody. Therefore we ask to pay attention to these rules:

1. We do not want to see insults, ad hominem comments, lengthy tirades, ongoing repetitions, forms of disrespect to opponents. Also lengthy presentation of amateur-theories are not welcomed. When violating these rules, postings will be deleted.2. Please limit your contributions to the issues of the different threads.3. Please give your name or use an alias - comments from "anonymous" should be avoided.4. When you feel yourself provoked, please restrain from ranting; instead try to delay your response for a couple of hours, when your anger has evaporated somewhat.5. If you wan to submit a posting (begin a new thread), send it to either Eduardo Zorita or Hans von Storch - we publish it within short time. But please, only articles related to climate science and climate policy.6. Use whatever language you want. But maybe not a language which is rarely understood in Hamburg.